Migratory Birds

Low-elevation Pacific islands are vulnerable to inundation from sea-level rise and sudden flooding events. The largely low-lying islands of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), that extend 1,930 km beyond the main Hawaiian Islands, are a World Heritage Site and part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The NWHI support the largest tropical seabird rookery in the world, provide...

Years after the last inmate departed Alcatraz Island, waterbirds like Black-crowned Night Herons and Snowy Egrets still make the forbidding island their home. The National Park Service has requested the aid of WERC’s Dr. Pete Coates to inform efforts to expand visitor access to the Island, and simultaneously maintain healthy waterbird populations.

The Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) in La Crosse, Wisconsin is studying the distribution and foraging patterns of sentinel fish-eating waterbirds through aerial surveys, and by tracking migration movements coupled with foraging depth profiles of common loons equipped with archival geo-locator tags and satellite transmitters. The results of this work are expected to elucidate...

Disturbance to resting and feeding waterfowl on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (Refuge) is of utmost concern to refuge managers. Voluntary Waterfowl Avoidance Areas (VWAA) have been established to reduce boating disturbance to migratory waterfowl on Navigation Pools 7 and 8 of the Upper Mississippi River. Ongoing boater compliance with the VWAA programs has been...

The Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) is a species of considerable conservation concern in North America, primarily due to widespread population declines attributable to habitat loss (Confer et al. 1992, Buehler et al. ) and displacement by the Blue-winged Warbler (V. pinus) in areas of sympatry (Gill 1980, 2004; Will 1986). Recent research highlighted an important mechanism in the...

This assessment deals with a select geographic area, the Upper Great Lakes, and the common birds that can be found there during migration periods. Much is known about potential landbird stopover habitats and raptor migration routes, and a great deal of GIS data is available to develop preliminary risk models for landbirds. However, the distribution, abundance and species composition of waterbirds...

The American woodcock is a popular game bird in much of eastern North America. The woodcock population declined between 1968- 2000 at an annual rate of 2.3% in the Eastern region and 1.6% in the Central region. The annual migration of woodcock from the breeding grounds to their wintering areas has been of interest to biologists and hunters. Migration corridors along the Atlantic coast, such as...

The Challenge: Research goals focus on measurement of direct effects of various habitat management techniques for game species on neotropical migratory birds. Analyses are ongoing to determine if avian species richness, diversity, and relative abundance of land birds has changed at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge as a result of habitat management; determine if the structure of the avian...

Objectives: 1. Use tree swallows and colonial waterbirds in the Great Lakes to evaluate contaminant Exposure (geographic and spatial) 2. Trends through time (temporal) 3. Effects (reproductive, physiological, genetic) 4. Monitor cleanup actions

The North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP) was a collaborative citizen science effort between the US Geological Survey (USGS) and 26 partners (state agencies, universities, and nonprofit organizations) for monitoring calling amphibian populations over much of the eastern and central United States. Initiated in 1997, in response to needs set forth by the Declining Amphibian Populations...

The Challenge: Each autumn, millions of landbirds migrate southward from breeding areas in the U.S. and Canada. Because these migrations occur during hurricane season, the impacts of hurricanes on migrating birds and their en route resting and foraging sites (stopover sites) are a real concern. Hurricane Sandy occurred late in the landbird migration season. By the time the storm made landfall in...

The Challenge: Concerns have arisen about the potential impacts of wind power development in the Appalachians on migrating birds, creating a critical need for information on their distribution and flight characteristics as they pass through the region. This study focuses on the spatial and temporal distribution of nocturnally migrating birds in the Central Appalachians (MD, VA, WV). The overall...